Study finds children of same sex couples lag in school

Countering previous studies that found little difference between kids of same sex couples and those in a traditional marriage, a new report reveals that children of gay parents are 35 percent less likely to make normal progress in school that those living with their own married parents.

Based on the largest sample to date for such a study, the new work from three economists raises anew the impact state laws approving of same sex marriage have on children.

The new study provided to Secrets said: "Children of same sex couples are significantly less likely to make normal progress through school than other children: 35% less likely than the children of heterosexual married parents, 23% less likely than the children of never married mothers, and 15% less likely than the children of cohabiting parents."

The study also looked at similar scholarly work that had determined no difference in children of same sex and traditional marriages. The authors said that those studies filtered the sample of children to get their result.

"The previous study claiming no differences between the children of same sex parents and other children had serious problems," said study co-author Douglas Allen, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. That study, he said, "excluded children who were not biologically related to the household head, and children who did not live in the same place for five years. That threw out over half of the observations. When we put those children back into our analysis, but controlled for these factors, we found that the children of same sex parents are less likely to make normal progress through school."

Allen's study was just published in the journal "Demography." He is a member of the Ruth Institute Circle of Experts, a group dedicated to traditional marriage. The other authors were Catherine Pakaluk of Ave Marie University and Joseph Price of Brigham Young University.